ASOS Magazine’s Spring Issue Talks About The Power of Knowledge

London, United Kingdom, 2017-Mar-06 — /EPR Retail News/ — KNOWLEDGE IS POWER is the theme that runs through the Spring issue of ASOS Magazine, kicking off with cover star – and Black-ish actor and humanitarian – Yara Shahidi, who’s interviewed by Gurls Talk founder and model Adwoa Aboah.

As Black-ish increases in popularity and her platform grows, Yara’s voice has become louder and stronger. Whether speaking alongside Michelle Obama on the importance of education, or discussing art’s role in activism in front of thousands of online viewers, if Yara is talking, it’s worth listening.

Then there’s Adwoa, a model whose experience of being bipolar drove her to use her voice and influence to launch a movement to ‘get girls talking’. Advocating openness, creating a space where nobody gets judged, she launched Gurls Talk last year, an online platform whose ambition is to create a community, open dialogues and remind young women that they’re not alone.

In a time when it’s never been so important to school yourself on the issues facing young people, Yara Shahidi is the head girl of hope. Adwoa Aboah heads to the actress and activist’s house to talk politics, periods, positivity and the power of fashion.

To celebrate the launch of the Spring issue, Yara Shahidi and Adwoa Aboah will be discussing Knowledge Is Power, the theme of the issue, at the BFC Show Space, The Store Studios, 180 Strand on Sunday 19 February at 7:30pm. This conversation will be streamed via ASOS Facebook Live.

Evoking knowledge: ‘Everything I do stems from the desire to help educate. What I aim to do is help spread knowledge, so people can come to their own conclusions.’

Her role in Black-ish: ‘To be given a show on primetime TV, featuring a black family, that’s so rare. To be able to address police brutality and religion and all these topics is really important for me.’

Embracing perfection and imperfection: ‘I’ve been in so many places where I’m like, “There’s a professor, there’s someone who’s been saving the world… What am I supposed to be doing in this space?” Because it goes to your head in two ways, not just, “Oh, I’m full of myself”, but this idea that you’re not good enough, either. Embracing perfection and imperfection.’

Fashion: ‘I view fashion as a warning for what you’re in for. My outfits are like a caution sign – “Has a loud personality and will talk your ear off.”’

Hope as a woman of colour: ‘Hope is seeing my generation, and Generation Z and Generation Alpha coming after that, not having any stereotypes because they have so many more role models who broke glass ceilings for us.‘

Social media: ‘It expands your horizons to so many like-minded people – to no longer have the barrier of distance in your way, and to be able to create your community, creates this interconnectedness that hadn’t existed before.’

The magic of girls: ‘To be reminded that we are greater than ourselves, when it’s easy to go into this forever melancholy state with what’s happening in the world. I could just mope because it’s easy to do, and I catch myself doing it all the time, but I want to feel better and do better for that girl over there.’

ABOUT ASOS

ASOS is a global fashion destination for 20-somethings. We sell cutting-edge fashion and offer a wide variety of fashion-related content, making ASOS.com the hub of a thriving fashion community. We sell over 85,000 branded and own-brand products through localised mobile and web experiences, delivering from our fulfilment centres in the UK, US and Europe to almost every country in the world. We tailor the mix of own-label, global and local brands sold through each of our eight local language websites: UK, US, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Australia and Russia. ASOS’s websites attracted 139 million visits during December 2016 (December 2015: 114 million) and as at 31 December 2016 it had 13.4 million active customers¹ (31 December 2015: 10.7 million), of which 4.9 million were located in the UK and 8.5 million were located in our international territories (31 December 2015: 4.2 million in the UK and 6.5 million internationally).

¹Defined as having shopped in the last twelve months stephanieo@asos.com